Our take on: Sandy Adams' hard line & BP's Bob Dudley

October 27, 2010

Taking a hard line

When asked this month by a caller in a telephone town hall meeting whether she believed in evolution, Republican candidate for Congress Sandy Adams replied, "I'm Christian. What else do you want to know?"

Millions of Americans — Christians — would take issue with Ms. Adams' offensive suggestion that a belief in evolution is somehow incompatible with their faith. In a 2007 poll, the Pew Research Center found that a majority of respondents identifying themselves as Catholics or mainline Protestants said they believed that evolution, a 150-year-old scientific theory, is the best explanation for the origins of life on earth. Many leaders in those churches accepted evolution decades ago.

There are more important issues in the 24th District race between Ms. Adams and incumbent Democrat Suzanne Kosmas, starting with jobs and the economy. But Ms. Adams' position on evolution is another example of the rigid ideological posture she has adopted in her campaign, and why the more-moderate Ms. Kosmas is a better choice for voters who expect their representative to be able to compromise to get things done in Congress.

Foot in mouth

Time to give up on BP saying the right thing. Tony "I Want My Life Back" Hayward lost his job after serially saying the wrong thing following the Deepwater Horizon blowout. Now his successor, Bob Dudley, is following in Hayward's footsteps.

On Monday he ridiculed his company's critics, saying they exaggerated the spill's impacts. Some did. But this is the same Bob Dudley who in the summer called estimates putting the spill at 70,000 barrels a day "scaremongering." Five-thousand barrels a day was more like it, he said. Turns out 62,000 was the right number.